Updates, Other Stuff and Good Reads

* My beloved Urbanophile has some new words about Detroit. Read it and learn a little more about what ELSE Detroit has to offer. Its all about the city's assets or what he calls "The Other Side of Detroit." Thank you, Mr. Renn. A highlight:

Detroit also has some legitimate and impressive assets. First is “Brand Detroit.” In one of the famous Cleveland tourism videos, the song ends with “at least we're not Detroit.” Actually, Cleveland might actually be better off if it were. As with winning the NBA draft lottery, it's better to be worst than second worst. Detroit has a powerful brand that literally resonates around the world. I think it's fair to say that for people overseas with any familiarity with America, Detroit is one of the cities they know. Most other places are ciphers.

* The voting is open at Motivate Michigan's web site. If you recall, it is a competition among Michigan-based college students to discover the next great idea for the state's economic growth. The winners get a nice college scholarship and perhaps a chance to see their idea put into motion. There are suggestions for improve Detroit's international image, battling our brain drain and fixing our corporate tax structure. Start casting those ballots, people.

* Stumbled on this video as someone was spreading it around Facebook and the like. The city created it in 1965 to try to get the Olympics here. It is called: "Detroit: City on the Move." Fun stuff.

<a href="http://twitter.com/TheDetroitHouse" target="_blank" class="beforetweet">TheDetroitHouse</a> After a year of learning, observing and understanding, TIME says goodbye to Detroit. Podcast: All Good Things... http://shar.es/0V3I7 - 4 years ago

NICHOLAS FISHER, expert at Stony Brook University in New York who took part in a study which found that bluefin tuna contaminated with radiation believed to be from Fukushima Daiichi were present off the coast of California just five months after the nuclear meltdown.